A poem by Albert Garcia in celebration of the poignant, brief-and-boundless late summer.

It’s ripe, the melon
by our sink. Yellow,
bee-bitten, soft, it perfumes
the house too sweetly.
At five I wake, the air
mournful in its quiet.
My wife’s eyes swim calmly
under their lids, her mouth and jaw
relaxed, different.
What is happening in the silence
of this house? Curtains
hang heavily from their rods.
Ficus leaves tremble
at my footsteps. Yet
the colors outside are perfect–
orange geranium, blue lobelia.
I wander from room to room
like a man in a museum:
wife, children, books, flowers,
melon. Such still air. Soon
the mid-morning breeze will float in
like tepid water, then hot.
How do I start this day,
I who am unsure
of how my life has happened
or how to proceed
amid this warm and steady sweetness?

This is the time of year we sit down to set goals and make resolutions for improvements in health, relationships, work life, state of mind and heart, and condition of the bathroom medicine cabinet. Here is one possibility. Below are links to others. Happy New Year, everyone!

The old year now away is fled,
The new year it is entered;
Then let us all our sins downtread,
And joyfully all appear.
Let’s be merry be this holiday
And let us run with sport and play
Hang sorrow, let’s cast care away—
God send us a merry new year!—English, 13th century

So many choices! The world offers a bounty of ready-to-grant wishes large and small, from cooking a meal for that sick family to shoveling the neighbors’ front walks to delivering a stack of blankets to the animal shelter. And I know my husband has a long list that includes filing (ugh) and decluttering (sigh) and paying more attention to him (some wishes are fun to grant).

Years ago, when I worked full time, and we were all preparing to head out of town for our annual convention, one of my colleagues always announced, “I’ve got to go home and get my house dying clean.” I didn’t really believe that her grieving family’s first thoughts would be for the impeccable cleanliness of her home. Ah, how simple my life was then. With time, I too have become an initiate of the pre-travel cleaning blitz. Not because I worry about the state of my house after my death. But because I don’t want to walk in the door to find heaps of laundry and dirty dishes when I return home with a car full of wet bathing suits and cracker crumbs.

This one is in honor of our beloved, skillful, and funny dentist, to whom we have all been going for years and who has seen so many of our teeth emerge… and depart… It makes me think that every time we smile, speak, or share a crunchy meal (carrots! cookies! corn on the cob!) we ought to remember him with gratitude.